SUNRISE, FLA.—It’s been a 19-day descent into hockey hell, a bewildering fall from a playoff spot to a draft lottery position, and Randy Carlyle clearly believes honesty is the only way out of these ugly times for the Maple Leafs.

“My message to the players is that we self-destructed,” said Carlyle after losing his fifth game in six starts since taking over as Leaf coach, a dispiriting 5-2 setback to the Florida Panthers.

“We have to be realistic about what we did. We didn’t play to the level which we’re capable of.

“You can’t give up five goals and expect to win in the NHL.”

After listening to a shell-shocked Ron Wilson in his final days try to make awful defeats sound like victories, this was a little new.

Still, a team that couldn’t defend is now one that can’t score, and the switch in coaches and strategies seems to have left the team utterly paralyzed rather than energized, a club now unsure whether to go forward or fall back, attack or retreat.

It’s gone from a team that had some swagger to it to one that looks as though it can’t wait for the season to end.

Given that this was a squad that looked terrific five weeks ago when they destroyed the Senators in Ottawa and now looks as though it would have trouble defeating Dallas Eakins’ AHL Marlies, it has turned into one of the more shocking single-season downturns in recent Leaf history.

For a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2004 and will, if the Panthers make it this spring, be the only NHL team not to have qualified for post-season play since the lockout, that’s saying something.

“It’s a matter now of everyone sticking together,” said defenceman John-Michael Liles. “We’ve gotta get through this together.”

After being shut out twice on the weekend, the Leafs did finally score late in the second period Tuesday night against the Panthers, but weak penalty killing following dumb penalties did them in.

With this year’s playoffs out of reach for the Leafs, Toronto fans are at least getting an early introduction to the way Carlyle’s club will play the game next fall, and it’s going to be about defence and more defence.

“It gives me an opportunity to learn what the group is about,” said Carlyle of coaching the Leafs through the final weeks of the season. “What the inner group is, who are your leaders, who are the guys you’re going to have difficulty swinging over, who are the guys who are buying in.

“I want everybody to understand this is how I like things done. Hopefully, we have people who want to buy into that. If they don’t, they’re going to be on an island.”

Carlyle appears unfazed by what he’s seeing and it almost seems as though next year’s training camp has already begun.

“It’s important for them to get an understanding of what I expect on a daily basis,” he said. “My coaching staff has to deliver the message that this is how we want things done. And we’re not going to accept anything less.

“The work ethic has to match their skill set. I knew it was a big job. Right from the word go. In the hockey world the pulse of Toronto is very visible. And there’s been a lot of things said, a lot of things have happened. The lack of success ... you know you’re coming into a situation where you’re going to have to resurrect some confidence in the players.

“These players have to understand that ... the way they did it before was somebody else’s idea, that this coaching staff is implementing something different.

“We’re trying to create a template that we commit to. When things don’t go well, you go back to that template. It’s not easy to accomplish.”

Against the Panthers, Carlyle suggested goalie James Reimer looked “very nervous,” and lamented the same lack of a strong net presence in the offensive zone that troubled the Leafs under Wilson.

“Net presence is an issue for us,” he said. “We’re accepting being boxed out.”

The Leafs head to Tampa for Thursday night’s game having now fallen 10 points behind eighth-place Washington with only 12 games left. The possibility of a high draft pick now looms much larger than a playoff berth for Carlyle’s team which has collapsed down the stretch this season in a way that will be difficult to forget.

The team may be aesthetically different after a coaching change but the results remain the same. The ACC will remain dark again this spring.

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